The Benghazi investigative committee on Tuesday formally requested former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton give a transcribed interview detailing her decision-making in determining which emails she turned over to the government and why she wiped her email server clean.

Chairman Trey Gowdy said Mrs. Clinton’s “unique arrangement with herself” — in which she claimed complete control of government business emails — needs to be explained, and nobody other than Mrs. Clinton can do that.

The interview would be behind closed doors, but would be part of the committee investigation’s record. A public hearing would follow eventually, once the select investigative committee has gathered all of the documents it believes it needs, said Mr. Gowdy, South Carolina Republican, in a letter to Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer.

“We continue to believe Secretary Clinton’s email arrangement with herself is highly unusual, if not unprecedented,” he said. “The decision to delete these records during the pendency of a congressional investigation only exacerbates our need to better understand what the secretary did, when she did it, and why she did it. While she has cited a variety of justifications for this arrangement, many questions and details about the arrangement remain unanswered.”

Mr. Gowdy said the questions include why Mrs. Clinton refused a government-issued account and set up her own account and server; why she kept the emails herself rather than turning them over to the State Department when she left office in early 2013; and how she decided which of the 62,000 emails from her time in office she would delete, and which she would turn over.

The chairman also pointedly made clear that since the emails are under committee investigation, any action to destroy them would be illegal. He said that’s why Mrs. Clinton must turn her server over to a neutral third party — a request Mrs. Clinton’s team has rejected, saying she has already complied with the law.

Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said Mrs. Clinton looks forward to a public hearing, but he didn’t address Mr. Gowdy’s request for a transcribed interview.

“Secretary Clinton already told the committee months ago that she was ready to appear at a public hearing. It is by their choice that hasn’t happened,” Mr. Merrill said. “To be clear, she remains ready to appear at a hearing open to the American public.”

Mrs. Clinton said she used an email server she set up at her home in New York, and issued herself her own email address, because she wanted to use a single device and account for both personal and private mail. She has said she determined about 30,000 of her 62,000 emails from her time in office were government-related, and in December 2014 — nearly two years after she left office — she turned those over to the State Department, after prodding by the Benghazi committee.

The emails she turned over amounted to 55,000 pages, and the State Department said this week it will take several more months to process those, since it needs to scan them to create digital files, and then needs to run them by experts to see what can be released publicly.

In a court filing this week the Obama administration said it wants to rush production of all of those emails online, and rejected a request from a conservative legal group, Judicial Watch, for quick turnaround on an open-records request.

But the State Department didn’t apply that to all requests. The Associated Press reported Tuesday morning that the department had released four of Mrs. Clinton’s emails to the news organization — including one that showed Mrs. Clinton used an iPad in addition to her mobile phone for sending emails.

That contradicts one of Mrs. Clinton’s justifications for having a single account. The former first lady and potential 2016 Democratic presidential candidate had told reporters in early March that she didn’t want to carry multiple devices.

Judicial Watch has multiple outstanding requests for Clinton emails and its president, Tom Fitton, said the State Department has searched Mrs. Clinton’s emails in one of those requests and will divulge the results to the group on April 2.

“It is not a matter of playing favorites, it is a matter of further harming [through delay] our right to know under the Freedom of Information Act, which the agency has trashed,” Mr. Fitton said.

]]>http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/benghazi-committee-demands-hillary-clinton-appear-to-explain-emails-washington-times/feed/0JEB BUSH IS A HONORARY CO-CHAIR FOR A LEARNING TASK FORCE AT ASPEN INSTITUTE, SUPPORTED BY GATES AND SOROShttp://bwcentral.org/2015/03/jeb-bush-is-a-honorary-co-chair-for-a-learning-task-force-at-aspen-institute-supported-by-gates-and-soros/
http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/jeb-bush-is-a-honorary-co-chair-for-a-learning-task-force-at-aspen-institute-supported-by-gates-and-soros/#respondTue, 31 Mar 2015 04:43:12 +0000http://bwcentral.org/?p=42879The ASPEN Institute, which resides in Washington, DC, views the United States as a nation rife with deep-seated “structural racism”, it warns that “the circumpolar Arctic region is experiencing significant ecological change due to global climate change” caused by human industrial activity and receives financial support from George Soros’s Open Society Institute. – Discover The Network

ASPEN Institute is involved in education and setup a “Task Force on Learning and the Internet”, which released a report and recommendations for ensuring today’s students have access to safe learning inside and outside of the classroom. The Institute named Jeb Bush as an Honorary Co-Chair for this Task Force on Learning and the Internet.

According to the New York Times, Jeb Bush has made it clear that he has no intention of shying away from his support for the Common Core education standards. It also mentions that Jeb goes further in offering classes to policy-makers in how to communicate about standards, including referring people to materials that support the Common Core. Besides being in the Task Force on Learning and the Internet, Jeb’s nonprofit Foundation for Excellence in Education is offering three online courses including one claiming the need for urgent education reform.

Dr. Richard Swier indicated that Common Core does not increase student performance; with the help of former Florida Governor Bush and Bill Gates, states have adopted the federal standards and the money that comes with it.

Michelle Malkin wrote that, Stanford University professor James Milgram, a prominent dissenting member of the Common Core math standards committee, has exposed how the muddled standards would leave American students at least two years behind the rest of the planet. University of Arkansas education professor emeritus and Massachusetts school standards architect Sandra Stotsky, who sat on the language arts validation panel, has documented how the English standards will result in:

1) teachers spending at least 50 percent of their reading instruction time on “informational texts” at every grade level.

3) a depleted fund of content knowledge that will leave students unprepared for basic college coursework.

Both Stotsky and Milgram repeatedly asked their panel colleagues for the names of the countries the Common Core standards were allegedly “benchmarked” to, but they never received an answer.

Totalitarian leaders such as Castro, Hitler and Stalin and everywhere in between have always sought to centralize and control education. The reason is simple, mentioned Alex Newman: Whoever molds the minds of the youth can eventually dominate the population, even if it takes a generation or two. That is why tyrants in recent centuries have demanded compulsory, government-led education. Hitler made clear that he wanted to use “education” as a tool to mold German children in accordance with the National Socialist regime’s despotic and murderous ideology. So did Stalin, and numerous other infamous tyrants and mass-murderers. As Karl Marx noted in his Communist Manifesto, government-controlled schooling is essential to achieving the goals of socialism.

As thousands and thousands of parents and grandparents continue to learn about Common Core and its content and assessments, more opposition emerges to the disgraceful program that has embedded into not only public schools, but private and Catholic schools.

To understand what Common Core is, Bear Witness Central is bringing Dr. Duke Pesta, as keynote speaker, an expert on Common Core to two conferences, one in Jacksonville on May 1st. and to the Daytona area (Port Orange) on May 2nd.

Dr Duke Pesta – FreedomProject Education Academic Director – Keynote speaker on Common CoreTom LaHue – Pastor and Adjunct Professor at Johnson University – Church in AmericaFrank De Varona – South Florida Director of Bear Witness Central – Insight into the tactics of the implementation of Totalitarianism in AmericaArmando Escalante – Northeast Director of Bear Witness Central – The influence of the Frankfurt School on the American CultureAlex Newman – Author, Writer, Journalist, Educator – History of American Education

]]>http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/jeb-bush-is-a-honorary-co-chair-for-a-learning-task-force-at-aspen-institute-supported-by-gates-and-soros/feed/0In Yemen, Sunni states say ‘enough’ to Iran… and Obamahttp://bwcentral.org/2015/03/in-yemen-sunni-states-say-enough-to-iran-and-obama/
http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/in-yemen-sunni-states-say-enough-to-iran-and-obama/#respondTue, 31 Mar 2015 02:53:20 +0000http://bwcentral.org/target/in-yemen-sunni-states-say-enough-to-iran-and-obama/US President Barack Obama stands alongside new Saudi King Salman (R) after arriving on Air Force One at King Khalid International Airport in the capital Riyadh on January 27, 2015 (photo credit: AFP/ SAUL LOEB)

Fighting continued Monday in southern Yemen, in the area around Aden, which is considered to be the last outpost of what remains of the country’s pro-US government. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has fled to Egypt. According to numerous reports, the Houthi rebels have managed to infiltrate the regions north and east of Aden.

Hitting back, Saudi planes struck various targets overnight, dealing blows to the Houthis, who are being provided with constant military aid by the Iranian regime. The targets bombed included weapons stores belonging to Abdul Malik al-Houthi’s men, as well as anti-aircraft missiles.

It is difficult to gauge whether what remains of the Yemeni army in Aden will prevent the southern port city from falling into the hands of the Shiite rebels. While the Saudis have deployed troops along their border with Yemen, to the north of the country, if Riyadh and other Arab countries truly want to prevent the occupation of Aden, a ground invasion will likely needed. It is not clear whether such a decision is in fact in the works, and whether there is an operational plan which would allow Saudi forces to undertake such a mission.

But regardless of how the fighting plays out in the days to come, it seems that something fundamental has changed in the mindset of the moderate, Sunni monarchist Arab states. The rulers of these countries — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states — are fed up with the world powers on the one hand, and the Iranian regime on the other. The Arab kings have realized that there’s no point waiting any longer for the American government.

A tank bearing the flag of southern separatist movement, which was confiscated from a military depot, is driven on a street in the southern Yemeni city of Aden on March 27, 2015. (photo credit: AFP/SALEH AL-OBEIDI)

The way they see it, President Barack Obama is obsessed, for domestic political reasons, with trying to reach a nuclear agreement with Iran, and this may be why he has abandoned the entire Middle East to Tehran’s whims: The Iranians can run wild in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, but the US government will not lift a finger as long as Tehran agrees to sign a memorandum of understanding concerning its nuclear project.

The Arab states are also disgusted with Russia, which assists the Shiite axis in every way possible, including militarily. Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, went as far as mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin in his address to the Arab League summit in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh this weekend. “Russia offers us a peaceful solution to the crisis in Syria, but yet continues to arm the regime there,” he stated dryly.

Hence the decision which dominated the Arab League summit, namely, to set up a joint Arab military force within three months. The goal, in other words, is to take rapid military action to stop the Iranians. The Arab states are tired of waiting for the US government, and they have decided to stop Tehran’s advances in the region even at the cost of war.

A spokesman for the so-called “Arab coalition forces to support the legitimate regime in Yemen” (better known as Saudi Arabia) said at the weekend that the strikes will continue until President Hadi’s return to power. The Saudis are not planning on stopping anytime soon. If the Americans won’t do it, the Saudis will. It seems that almost nothing has changed in the Middle East since 680 CE, as Sunnis and Shiites continue to fight over the identity of the successor of the Prophet Muhammad.

With regards to the nuclear agreement being hammered out in Lausanne, the Arab states don’t have many expectations. The Sunni powers, like Israel, understand that the deal is almost sealed and that they must now face the consequences. Iran will continue to be a nuclear threshold state, though without a bomb for the time being. It will continue its conquests throughout the region.

What has changed now is the decision by the moderate Arab states to act independently against Iran. Contrary to the policy they followed in Syria, where a proxy army was supported by Saudi Arabia, the action in Yemen represents a kind of watershed moment for the Arabs. From hereon, monarchist Sunni states will use their own power, across the Middle East, even at the cost of military conflict with Iran. They will do so in order to prevent the establishment of a Shiite empire in the region, and to weaken it where it has already taken hold.

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, a prominent American-Israeli Orthodox rabbi, has compared US President Barack Obama to Haman, the villain of the Purim story.

Riskin, the longtime chief rabbi of Efrat, a West Bank settlement in the Gush Etzion bloc, made the comparison during a speech at the Jerusalem Great Synagogue on Saturday night, The Jerusalem Post reported.

“The president of the United States is lashing out at Israel just like Haman lashed out at the Jews,” he said. “I’m not making a political statement. I’m making a Jewish statement.”

Riskin also compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Mordechai, who along with niece Esther is the hero of the Purim story.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City, a day after the Israeli general elections, March 18, 2015. (Photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The crowd booed an audience member who shouted that Riskin was being disrespectful to Obama.

“I am being disrespectful because the president of the United States was disrespectful to my prime minister, to my country, to my future and to the future of the world,” Riskin said.

Riskin led the Lincoln Square Synagogue, a modern Orthodox congregation on the Upper West Side of New York, for 20 years before making aliyah in 1983.

Ties between Washington and Jerusalem have sunk to new lows in recent weeks over disagreements between Netanyahu and Obama regarding negotiations with Iran and peace efforts with the Palestinians.

House Speaker John Boehner controversially invited Netanyahu to address Congress earlier this month, where the prime minister urged lawmakers to thwart a nuclear deal between Iran and several world powers, which is backed firmly by Obama. The visit, which was not coordinated with administration officials, was said to greatly anger the White House, as Netanyahu was perceived by critics to be publicly undermining the president.

Netanyahu was also castigated by the Obama administration for saying, on the eve of Israel’s March 17 elections, that he would not allow a Palestinian state on his watch, drawing an American threat to reevaluate its approach to the peace process.

Haman Begging the Mercy of Esther, by Rembrandt

The White House rejected Netanyahu’s post-election clarification, in which he said he was not opposed to establishing a Palestinian state in principle, just not under current circumstances. He said he still supported a sustainable, peaceful two-state solution, but that the region was increasingly dangerous and that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was refusing to come to terms with Israel as a Jewish state.

The PM also apologized for Election Day remarks about Arab Israelis voting “in droves” — for which he was criticized at home and abroad, notably by Obama — saying he never meant to harm the feelings of the minority community.

]]>http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/prominent-american-israeli-rabbi-compares-obama-to-haman/feed/0Hypocrisy Alert: That Time Sen. Clinton Said The Bush Administration Might Have ‘Something To Hide’ By Refusing To Turn Over Documentshttp://bwcentral.org/2015/03/hypocrisy-alert-that-time-sen-clinton-said-the-bush-administration-might-have-something-to-hide-by-refusing-to-turn-over-documents/
http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/hypocrisy-alert-that-time-sen-clinton-said-the-bush-administration-might-have-something-to-hide-by-refusing-to-turn-over-documents/#respondTue, 31 Mar 2015 02:47:35 +0000http://bwcentral.org/target/hypocrisy-alert-that-time-sen-clinton-said-the-bush-administration-might-have-something-to-hide-by-refusing-to-turn-over-documents/

We all know Hillary Clinton used a private email address and server for official business when she was Secretary of State. She said she turned over her work-related emails to State, and deleted the ones she deemed personal. Her lawyers said they wouldn’t honor the request by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, to turn over the server to an independent arbiter for review, and that it’s been wiped clean, along with any back up systems connected to the server.

This private email scandal has been a nightmare for the Clinton team since it has rehashed all the negative things people associate with them, and elicits questions about transparency. Clinton has said she has gone above and beyond what has been asked over her regarding turning over her work-related emails to the State Department, citing that she used that private email address out of convenience because she didn’t want to use two devices; a claim that Gawker’s John Cook said was “preposterous.” Cook described Clinton’s email setup as “Nixonian.”

This is all the more interesting given that then-Sen. Hillary Clinton criticized the Bush administration in October of 2003 for refusing to turn over documents to the 9/11 Commission chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean.

In her remarks at the Center for American Progress’ New American Strategies for Security and Peace Conference, then-Sen. Clinton touched upon America’s war on terror, criticized the Bush doctrine, and the lack of transparency exuded by the Bush administration during the 9/11 Commission’s investigation into those horrific terror attacks [emphasis mine]:

I feel absolutely without doubt that our citizens, particularly my constituents, deserve to know all the facts of how the government was prepared or not. Yet, over this weekend, we learned that the 9/11 commission, an independent commission, charged with the important task of investigating how 9/11 happened, complains that it is not getting access to all the documents it needs.This is a hugely important issue. And it’s not just important for this commission, but for these larger questions about access to information and how this government maintains the trust of the American people.

The lack of transparency on the part of the Bush administration has forced Governor King [sic; it’s Kean], former Republican Governor of New Jersey, to threaten subpoenas. This should not be happening.

As bad as it was for Vice President Cheney to keep secret how the administration developed its energy policy, this is far worse. The 9/11 commission is not trying to embarrass this president or any former president or anyone else. It is trying to learn what happened, what went wrong. In hopes that we can be better prepared to protect ourselves from any future attacks.

In taking their action to evade or avoid providing information, the administration unnecessarily raises the suspicion that it has something to hide, that it might use the claim of national security to hide mistakes that are literally questions of life and death for Americans.

As mentioned in her remarks, Gov. Kean was ready to issue subpoenas over documents the commission felt were being withheld. At the time, the Bush administration turned over 2 million pages of documents to the commission, and President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney would have a three-hour session with 10 members of the investigatory board. Critics will certainly mention that Bush and Cheney were not under oath during this session, and that no official record exists since no stenographers were allowed to participate in the meeting. The commission would say the session was “forthcoming and candid;” two things that cannot be said about Clinton and her history of secrecy. Also, even James Carville mentioned that her email system appears to be set up to avoid congressional oversight, the man who ran point on implementing FOIA throughout the executive branch–Dan Metcalfe–noted that her email was set up to avoid such requests.

As Rep. Gowdy noted in his statement, Hillary decided to wipe her hard drive sometime after October 28, 2014 when the State Department asked for her public record of service. The committee issued the subpoena for the emails relating to Libya on March 4; Clinton’s lawyer sent a letter on the status of the server on March 27.

Just to note: Clinton’s emails were under subpoena when she destroyed them.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus aptly noted that even Nixon didn’t destroy the tapes. It appears Hillary destroyed those emails while under a subpoena; a point that threw the Meet The Press roundtable into “chaos” over the weekend.

Yes, Mrs. Clinton turned over emails, which they say was done after reading all of them, despite this statement coming after Time reported that her lawyers only used a keyword search to conduct their review. If they read every email, then why hit “Control + F?”

Lastly, in the interests of transparency, a State Department Inspector General might have been able to catch the private email address Clinton was using during her tenure as Secretary of State. The problem is that there wasn’t a permanent IG the entire time she was there.

“The deal emerging in Lausanne [Switzerland] sends a message that there is no cost for aggression, and in turn, that there is a reward for Iran’s aggression,” Netanyahu said.

The Israeli Prime Minister vowed to continue fighting against vital threats to the national security of his country.

He added: “We will never close our eyes and we will continue to operate against every threat in every generation, and of course in this generation.”

Netanyahu predicted that many countries in the region would be immediately affected by a bad deal.

“Moderate, responsible countries in the region, primarily Israel but other countries as well, will be the first to be harmed by this agreement,” he said.

On Sunday, the Israeli Prime Minister expressed concern with the Iranian regime’s growing sphere of influence and control.

“After the Beirut-Damascus- Baghdad axis, Iran is carrying out a pincer movement from the south to take over and occupy the entire Middle East. The Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis is very dangerous to humanity and it must be stopped,” Netanyahu said on Sunday at his weekly cabinet meeting.

Netanyahu suggested in the meeting that the impending nuclear deal likely “paves Iran’s way to the [nuclear] bomb.”

The foreign ministers of Iran and the entire P5+1 world powers met in Switzerland on Monday in hopes to secure a basic framework for a nuclear deal by Tuesday’s March 31 deadline. This marked the first time that all of the negotiating foreign minister’s gathered together at the same event.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the media, “I think it is possible to reach a deal by [Tuesday] night. The gaps are narrowing. I am always optimistic.”

“Our deadline is tomorrow night so obviously we are working very hard,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters.

When the notorious Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, kidnapped 278 school girls from the town of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria last year, Michelle Obama began a Twitter hashtag campaign, #BringBackOurGirls. But behind the scenes, the Obama administration was undermining Nigeria’s efforts to take the battle to the terrorists. Obama refused to sell Nigeria arms and supplies critical to the fight, and stepped in to block other Western allies from doing so. The administration also denied Nigeria intelligence on Boko Haram from drones operating in the area. While Boko Haram was kidnapping school girls, the U.S. cut petroleum purchases from Nigeria to zero, plunging the nation’s economy into turmoil and raising concerns about its ability to fund its battle against the terrorists. Nigeria responded by cancelling a military training agreement between the two countries.

The Nigerian presidential election is coming up Saturday, March 28, 2015. AKPD, the political consulting group founded by Obama confidante David Axelrod, is assisting Retired Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim presidential candidate from Muslim-dominated northern Nigeria, where Boko Haram was spawned and wields the most influence. Buhari is well-known throughout the country, having led as “Head-of-State” following a military coup in 1983. He was dislodged following another coup in 1985.

Democracy is a recent phenomenon in Nigeria. With the exception of two short periods from its independence in 1960 to 1966, and the second republic from 1979 to 1983, the country was ruled by a string of military dictatorships between 1966 and 1999.

Under the All Progressives Congress (APC) banner, Buhari is putting up a stiff challenge to the sitting president, Dr. Ebele Goodluck Jonathan who hails from Nigeria’s Christian south. Buhari was also the North’s presidential candidate in the last election held in 2011.

Axelrod is credited as the force behind President Obama’s election victories in 2008 and 2012. He served as Obama’s Senior Advisor until 2011. A well-placed Nigerian interviewed for this report who asked to remain unidentified says that influential Nigerians within and outside the government believe Obama deliberately undermined the war effort and sabotaged the Nigerian economy to make President Jonathan appear weak and ineffectual, and thus bolster the electoral prospects for AKPD’s client, Buhari.

The prominent daily Nigerian Tribune cites an activist group, Move on Nigeria, complaining that the U.S. is fueling tension in Nigeria and has “continued to publicly magnify every challenge of the Nigerian government.”

An anti-Buhari Nigerian blogger writing in the Western Postwent further:

In the last year, Nigeria sought aid from the White House for many initiatives, including the fight against Boko Haram.

The Obama administration refused to do anything but play [sic] lip service to Nigeria’s requests. However, it used public and private channels to internationally magnify every failure Nigeria’s government experienced.

In the last year, since the involvement of Axelrod’s firm, relations between the two nations have significantly deteriorated, with the US refusing to sell arms to Nigeria, a significant reduction in the purchase of Nigeria’s oil, and the cancellation of a military training agreement between Nigeria and the USA.

In turn, the Buhari-led Nigerian opposition used the U.S. government’s position as validation for their claim that the Nigerian government was a failure.

The U.S. government has up till today refused to grant Nigeria’s request to purchase lethal equipment that would have brought down the terrorists within a short time on the basis of the allegations that Nigeria’s defence forces have been violating human rights of Boko Haram suspects when captured or arrested.

We find it difficult to understand how and why, in spite of the U.S. presence in Nigeria, with their sophisticated military technology, Boko Haram should be expanding and becoming more deadly.

The U.S. government has frustrated Nigeria all the way in our war against terrorism despite its public statements in support of Nigeria, as it fights the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-east… They want us to fight Boko Haram with our arms tied to our backs.

They have blocked us from procuring the helicopters and would not provide us with intelligence despite the fact that they have several drones and sophisticated aircraft overflying the North-east of Nigeria from bases in Niger and Chad where the Boko Haram fighters and movements are clearly in their sights.

Retired Col. Abubakar Umar, a former military governor, concluded that the Americans “have decided to turn a blind eye to what is happening in Nigeria.”

Former Head-of-State, Retired Gen. Yakubu Gowon publicly stated last November that America is no friend of Nigeria.

The Obama administration has said it is barred from supplying weapons by the so-called Leahy Amendment which forbids foreign states that have committed “gross human rights violations” from receiving military aid. However this did not stop the U.S. from sending Special Forces to Uganda—another country accused of such violations—to assist in capturing Lord Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony. Nor did it prevent Obama from supporting al Qaeda-linked rebel groups in Libya, who later went on to attack the Benghazi mission, and have now joined ISIS. The Syrian “moderates” the administration claimed to back are also allegedly joining with ISIS.

In fact, Obama supported the Islamic radicals who destabilized states throughout the Middle East, including Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, and did little to prevent Iranian-backed Shiites from overthrowing Yemen—a key ally in the War on Terror. And despite claims that the U.S. “does not negotiate with terrorists,” the administration did so in secret with the Taliban for years, most notoriously over the release of Bowe Bergdahl.

The U.S. State Department is currently negotiating a deal that will enable Iran to obtain the bomb, and it just declared that Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, are not terrorists. The administration even claims Iran has been an ally in the War on Terror! Finally, Axelrod’s client, Buhari, has been accused of human rights abuses during his time as chief-of-state.

To top it off, Secretary of State John Kerry made a mockery of the administration’s pretext by hinting in January meetings with both Jonathan and Buhari that the Obama administration might allow weapon sales after the election. If the U.S. was so concerned about human rights violations, how could a mere election change that? Given the perception that Buhari has Obama’s implicit support, this sends an unmistakable message.

The administration also rationalized its decision to cut purchases of Nigerian oil by claiming that output from domestic oil fracking has reduced America’s dependence on foreign oil. But that begs the question: why have U.S. oil imports from other nations increased at the same time? Nigeria was formerly among America’s top five oil supplying countries, and America its largest customer. Nigeria relies on oil revenues for 70 percent of its budget. America’s decision to look elsewhere has been catastrophic for Nigeria’s economy.

A Deutsche Bank analyst noted that the decline in Nigeria’s oil sales to America “proceeded much faster than for the U.S.’ other major suppliers,” and concluded that singling Nigeria out this way had to be driven by politics.

Nigeria is not the only country where Obama is using oil as a foreign policy weapon. The U.S. has not renewed its 35-year-old agreement with Israel to provide emergency supplies of oil, despite booming U.S. oil production. The agreement expired in November 2014. At the time, the State Department claimed to be working on renewing the agreement, but has yet to do so.

U.S. Media AWOL

There is not a single article mentioning Axelrod’s assistance to Buhari in any U.S. “mainstream” media outlet. Only the Washington Free Beacon ran a story.

]]>http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/obama-accused-of-obstructing-battle-against-boko-haram-to-promote-axelrods-nigerian-muslim-client/feed/0Hispanic activists organizing In support of tougher immigration lawshttp://bwcentral.org/2015/03/hispanic-activists-organizing-in-support-of-tougher-immigration-laws/
http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/hispanic-activists-organizing-in-support-of-tougher-immigration-laws/#respondMon, 30 Mar 2015 03:21:26 +0000http://bwcentral.org/target/hispanic-activists-organizing-in-support-of-tougher-immigration-laws/Pedro Rivera is 53 years old, Hispanic, and a retired military man. He’s also part of a growing number of Hispanic Texans pushing for stronger immigration enforcement, including the passage of SB 185, which would stop cities from implementing policies banning local cops from asking immigration-related questions.

“I’m an American citizen and I believe in the rule of law,” Rivera said. “And being Hispanic, I should not be granted special privilege in avoiding the law. We need officers to have all the tools available to them to keep us safe. That includes asking the question, when you’re being detained for a crime or being arrested for an offense, ‘ are you here illegally? Are you a US citizen?’”

Rivera is working with Maria Espinoza, director of the Remembrance Project. Espinoza’s Houston-based organization works with families of Americans killed by people in the United States illegally.

“This is a new initiative,” Espinoza s

aid, of an effort to recruit Hispanic conservatives to speak out in support of SB 185.

Espinoza’s new group, which isn’t exclusive to people of Hispanic origin, traveled to Austin last week and asked lawmakers to stop Texas cities, like Houston , from adopting their own immigration related policies. It’s not a new fight. The Texas Senate actually passed a similar measure in 2011. It prompted protests, then stalled before becoming state law. Espinoza says a lot has changed in four years.

“We have more Latinos who are behind this issue and also law enforcement,” she said. “We have (four) sheriffs who testified with us to remove sanctuary city policies.“

“We don’t think it’s a good idea for the state,” Espinosa said. “ We don’t think it’s a good idea for the city. If people are afraid to come forward (and report crimes as) victims of crimes or witnesses of crimes because of their legal status, we’re all going to be in trouble.”

Critics also say passage of the bill would promote racial profiling.

Maria Espinoza disagrees.

“I have never been pulled over. My daughter has never been pulled over, and none of her friends have been pulled over because of profiling,” she said. “We have to weigh the odds. We have families and we took families with us to the hearing whose loved ones were killed (by illegal immigrants). Their children were killed by people who should not have been in the country in the first place. There is no comparison in lives lost to someone being detained (for questioning) for five or ten minutes.”

A message on the homepage of The Remembrance Project website reads: “We believe that America is exceptional. In our lives and in our country, America is the priority. As are Americans! Learn what you can do to stop the nonsense of ignoring laws and our US Constitution. Help stop public servants from placing other countries and non-citizens before our families. Join us to speak up for Latinos!”

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]]>http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/hispanic-activists-organizing-in-support-of-tougher-immigration-laws/feed/0Former Intelligence Officer: The Utter Stupidity of Hillary’s Actionshttp://bwcentral.org/2015/03/former-intelligence-officer-the-utter-stupidity-of-hillarys-actions/
http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/former-intelligence-officer-the-utter-stupidity-of-hillarys-actions/#respondMon, 30 Mar 2015 03:10:36 +0000http://bwcentral.org/?p=42817As a former member of the intelligence community I felt a deep shadow fall over me as I read about Hillary Clinton’s use of an outside email service instead of the more secure and private State Department system. She did this for obvious reasons, to keep her communications out of official channels and away from the prying eyes of her political enemies (the Republicans…). One might sympathize with a politician in her situation.

However, the Secretary of State of the United States of America is the number two intelligence target IN THE WORLD, behind only her boss, the President. To tap into her communications guarantees lavish rewards and promotions to the intelligence team who does it. All eyes are on her, like vultures, waiting. Yes, it really works this way.

An email system such as the one described is considered “easy pickings.” After seeing the details in the press, my first conclusion is this:

Russians and the Chinese were reading her emails. In real time.

I’m not saying maybe or perhaps. They were.

The Russians and Chinese have sophisticated intelligence services, with sophisticated spotting, assessing, targeting capabilities. They have thousands of people who work these issues. Ms. Clinton may say that she didn’t talk about classified matters, and she may think this is correct. But any intelligence professional knows it’s impossible to “talk around” a topic effectively (despite what you might see in spy movies…). With a high value target like Ms. Clinton, an intel service will have teams of analysts and psychologists analyzing every word she says, with absolutely clear context.

It is also likely the French, the Germans and a host of other sophisticated services were tapping in. There will be no trace of their reading it, no logs, no records. This is an easy lift.

On the “perhaps” list, the Mexicans, the Iranians, the Narco Cartels, and the more sophisticated backers of Al Quaida, along with various computer-savvy nuts from around the country and around the world. Who else was getting it? Anyone the Chinese or the Russians thought should get it!

Let’s talk about information. Back in the day, I was told if you have a good source but no particular requirements from your reports officer you ask about “Plans and Intentions.” We are talking about plans and intentions of the U.S. government, negotiating positions, possible movement of resources that reveal policy decisions, actions that if known could be circumvented or countered.

We don’t know the content of these emails, and of course a major part of those have been deleted so we may never know. We have to assume the worst, so let’s ask some questions:

Did Putin know what our reaction would be before he invaded the Ukraine?

Did Al Quaida know our intentions in Benghazi before the attack?

Did Iran know our proposals before we started negotiating this latest agreement?

How about any trade or political agreement where Russia or China might have an interest?

Compromised? How much money, positioning power, or benefit did the American people lose because the opposite side new exactly how far to push? These are potentially trillion dollar issues.

I wrote recently about a failure of Ms. Clinton’s leadership during the Benghazi attack. But this reveals a major failure in her understanding of simple security procedures, to the devastating loss of her country. It always seemed to me that President Obama has always gotten his clock cleaned in international negotiations. Could it be because his Secretary of State was compromised?

]]>http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/former-intelligence-officer-the-utter-stupidity-of-hillarys-actions/feed/0RNC On Hillary Cover-Up: ‘Even Nixon Didn’t Erase The Tapes’http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/rnc-on-hillary-cover-up-even-nixon-didnt-erase-the-tapes/
http://bwcentral.org/2015/03/rnc-on-hillary-cover-up-even-nixon-didnt-erase-the-tapes/#respondMon, 30 Mar 2015 02:26:27 +0000http://bwcentral.org/target/rnc-on-hillary-cover-up-even-nixon-didnt-erase-the-tapes/ Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton listens to remarks as she takes part in a Center for American Progress roundtable discussion on “Expanding Opportunities in America’s Urban Areas” in Washington March 23, 2015. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque – RTR4UIQ8

But if the former secretary of state did take extraordinary measures to ensure her official emails were scrubbed off the server, that would make her worse than Richard Nixon in at least one regard.

“Even Nixon didn’t destroy the tapes,” said Priebus, referencing recordings the former president kept of conversations he had in the White House between 1971 and 1973. The tapes were made available to Watergate investigators and later made public.

On Friday, Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican leading the House Select Committee’s investigation into Benghazi, announced that Clinton acted “unilaterally” and “wiped clean” her private server.

Gowdy had subpoenaed Clinton’s server but her attorney told the committee that it contained no records. The attorney also said that there are no back-up copies of Clinton’s emails. Gowdy said that Clinton scrubbed the server after the State Department asked for her email records in late October. She turned over 55,000 pages of emails to the State Department in December. Approximately 300 of those emails were given to the Benghazi committee. Clinton has said that she turned over all of her official government emails but has not agreed to outside inspection.

Gowdy did not state whether Clinton’s attorney indicated why the former first lady waited nearly a month after the story broke about her exclusive use of a private email account and the private server to inform the public that the device had been scrubbed.

“It’s imperative an independent third party review the server immediately,” Priebus said Saturday. “Unless Mrs. Clinton went to extreme lengths to wipe this server, there are ways to recover this data.”

“Unfortunately it appears Clinton went above and beyond to eliminate email traffic as Secretary of State. There isn’t a separate set of rules the Clintons can choose to play by. It’s time they be held accountable.”